Broadly Features

Broadly has always been an unabashedly feminist website. In our reporting, we've focused on honest, lived experiences and elevating the voices of people who might otherwise not have a chance to be heard. A sample of some of our favorite work is below.

Kimberly Lawson gives a voice to a student caught in the middle of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ changes to Title IX guidelines on college campuses. Yolanda’s case, which is now going through an appeals process, is one example of the impact the new proposed regulations on campus sexual violence may have on young women on college campuses. It interrogates who will be held accountable when women’s voices are systemically silenced.

This piece by writer Sarah Yahr Tucker addresses an epidemic that is widespread, but rarely discussed: the trauma of obstetric violence. After publishing this story, Broadly received an outpouring of responses from women who have endured violence at the hands of their caregivers and doctors during labor.

One year after the #MeToo movement took off, exposing many sexual assault and harassment allegations, writer Moira Donegan tries to make sense of what the movement has accomplished. She asks the questions, What happens now? And is it still worth coming forward if abusers aren't held accountable?

In this piece, Amanda Knox—who was imprisoned in Italy between 2007 and 2011 for a murder she didn't commit—shines a light on the nuanced, often very tender relationships that incarcerated women share with each other, reflecting on her friendship with an Italian woman she met in prison. "Relationships in prison are sometimes about sex, but more often they're about human connection," she writes. "Because prison is an awful place: It is designed to deny people their desire to connect."

In this piece, Broadly staff writer Marie Solis helps us to understand how it can be that many people believed Christine Blasey Ford's testimony that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her while they were in high school. Still, some of these people voted to confirm him to the Supreme Court. Solis writes: "The call to believe women is born from the logical deduction that many people still don't, particularly those who most possess the power to turn their belief in women into material change."

Chest binding (flattening the breasts with garments such as Ace bandages, commercial binders, or sports bras) is a fact of life for many trans and non-binary people. Surprisingly little is known about the health implications of binding, which is why researchers from John Hopkins and Boston University embarked on The Binding Health Project, the first study of its kind to survey the LGBTQ community on their use of chest binding.

Anti-rape technologies arguably date all the way back to 15th century chastity devices, but the 21st century has seen an explosion in the number of devices that are marketed towards women and claim to keep them safe from harm. Broadly associate editor Sirin Kale investigates the rise of this new wave of women-focused safety tech.

Their youngest "son" wasn’t like their older twin boys. From the time she was three years old, Jazz Jennings has identified as a girl. That was in 2003, years before transgender identity became widely discussed in pop culture or politics. Jennings quickly captured media attention as an elementary school transgender girl, whose family fought for her right to express her gender identity at school. In this profile, Broadly writer Diana Tourjee meets with Jazz and her mom to understand what life as a transgender teenager in the spotlight is really like.

In this feature story, writer Aviva Stahl examines how, since the passing of FOSTA/SESTA, sex workers across the US have rallied against the legislation and vocalized its harmful, and sometimes devastating, effects on their lives and livelihoods. Trans sex workers and advocates argue that FOSTA/SESTA has forced more trans sex workers onto the streets or into the hands of pimps or dangerous clients, at a time when trans people are being murdered at record numbers—leaving many trans people to risk their lives in order to eat and pay rent.